Stanton, Elizabeth Cady
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Wikipedia-Article "Elizabeth Cady Stanton"
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) was a social activist, and a leading figure of the early women's rights movement in the United States. With her husband, Henry Stanton and cousin, Gerrit Smith, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was also active in the anti-slavery Abolitionist movement. Stanton had a strong friendship with abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass.
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Life account
Elizabeth Cady was born in Johnstown, New York to Daniel Cady and Margaret Livingston Cady. Daniel Cady was a prominent attorney who served a term in the Congress of the United States and later became a judge. Margaret Livingston was the daughter of Colonel James Livingston, an officer in the American Revolutionary War.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton met Henry Brewster Stanton through her early involvement in the temperence and the abolition movements. Henry Stanton was a journalist, an antislavery orator, and, after their marriage, became an attorney. Despite Daniel Cady's reservations, the couple were married in 1840 and had seven carefully spaced children. Cady Stanton loved motherhood and assumed primary responsibility for rearing the children. She was remembered by her daughter Margaret as cheerful, sunny and indulgent.
Stanton took her husband's surname as part of her own, signing herself Elizabeth Cady Stanton or E. Cady Stanton, but refused to be addressed as Mrs. Henry B. Stanton. Feeling that women were individual persons, she asserted that "(t)he custom of calling women Mrs. John This and Mrs. Tom That and colored men Sambo and Zip Coon, is founded on the principle that white men are lords of all."
The Stanton marriage was not entirely without tension and disagreement. Due to employment, travel and financial considerations, husband and wife lived more often apart than together. Friends of the couple found them very similar in temperment and ambition, but quite dissimilar in their views on issues such as women's rights. In 1842, abolitionist reformer Sarah Grimke counseled Elizabeth in a letter: "Henry greatly needs a humble, holy companion and thou needest the same." However, both Stantons appeared to consider their marriage an overall success and the marriage lasted for forty-seven years, ending with Henry's death in 1887. (Baker, pp. 99-113).
Stanton died in 1902 and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York.
Women's rights movement
| The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way. —Elizabeth Cady Stanton. |
Stanton wrote many of the more important documents and speeches of the women's rights movement and was, with her friend Susan B. Anthony, the primary organizers of the 1848 Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. For this convention, Stanton drafted a Declaration of Sentiments, declaring that men and women are created equal. She also proposed a resolution, that was voted upon and carried, demanding voting rights for women. She was a great admierer of Lucretia Mott whom she a witnessed speak at the International Anti-Slavery Convention in London England in the Spring of 1840.
In 1851, Stanton met Susan B. Anthony. They were introduced, on a street in Seneca Falls, by mutual acquaintance Amelia Bloomer, also a feminist. Stanton and Anthony were to remain close friends and colleagues the rest of her life, though unlike Anthony, Stanton wanted to push a broader platform of women's rights than suffrage.
Together, in 1869, they founded the National Woman's Suffrage Association, an organization dedicated to gaining women the right to vote. In 1890, Stanton opposed a merger with the American Woman Suffrage Association, which created a National American Woman Suffrage Association. Despite her opposition, Stanton became its first president (largely due to Susan B. Anthony's support), however she was never popular among more conservative elements of the 'National American'.
Stanton and Anthony also began the women's rights newsletter The Revolution, which included frequent contributions from Stanton. Starting in 1881, Stanton, Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage published the first of three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage, an anthology of writings about the movement in which they were so prominent. This anthology reached six volumes by various writers in 1922. Stanton was also active internationally, spending a great deal of time in Europe in her later years, and in 1888 she helped prepare for the founding of the International Council of Women.
However, after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (which proposed black suffrage but had neglected female suffrage), and its support by the Equal Rights Association and prominent suffragists such as Lucy Stone, a gulf appeared between the women's rights movement and the move for racial equality. Cady Stanton declared, "I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work for or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman."
In a view different from many modern activists, Stanton expressed a negative opinion on abortion. She addressed the issue in an 1873 letter to Julia Ward Howe, recorded in Howe's diary at Harvard University Library, and in editions of the newsletter The Revolution. Stanton suggested that solutions to abortion would be found, at least in part, in the elevation and enfranchisement of women. Stanton was an outspoken supporter of the 19th century temperance movement, however her views on religion distanced her from the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She also addressed other issues including the guardianship of children, reformation of divorce laws, and the economic health of the family. She was a strong critic of religion in general and Christianity in particular.
USS Elizabeth C. Stanton (AP-69), a World War II troop transport, was named for her.
Writings
- Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences 1815-1897 ISBN 1591020093
- The Woman's Bible ISBN 1573926965
- Solitude of Self ISBN 1930464010
- Declaration of Sentiments
Related Writings
- Baker, Jean H. Sisters: The Lives of America's Suffragists. Hill and Wang, New York, 2005. ISBN 0-8090-9528-9.
- Banner, Lois W. "Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Radical for Women's Rights." Addison-Wesley Publishers, 1997. ISBN 0673393194.
- Dubois, Ellen Carol, editor. "The Elizabeth Cady Stanton-Susan B. Anthony Reader: Correspondence, Writings, Speeches." Northeastern University Press, September 1994. ISBN 1555531490.
- Gaylor, Annie Laurie. "Women Without Superstition : No Gods - No Masters" Publisher: FFRF; 1st edition, January 1, 1997. ISBN 1877733091.
- Griffith, Elisabeth. "In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton." Oxford University Press, Great Britain, 1985. ISBN 0195037294. Also by Galaxy Books, ISBN 0195034406.
- Sigerman, Harriet. "Elizabeth Cady Stanton: The Right Is Ours." Oxford University Press, November 2001. ISBN 019511969X.
- Ward, Geoffrey C., Burns, Ken, Burns, Ken C. "Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony." Knopf Publishing Group, December 2001. ISBN 037570969X.
Video
- Ken Burns, director. Not for Ourselves Alone - The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony. DVD (1999).
References and external links
- Works by Elizabeth Cady Stanton at Project Gutenberg
- Eighty Years and More
- The Woman's Bible
- Rutgers: Stanton and Anthony Archive
- Women's Rights National Historical Park (National Park Service)
- Article on Stanton's family memorabilia
- Full text of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's publications at the Harvard University Library Open Collections Program